New Wave

"Nouvelle Vague" redirects here. For the music group of the same name, see Nouvelle Vague (band).

File:Julesetjim.jpg

François Truffaut's New Wave film Jules et Jim

The New Wave (French: la Nouvelle Vague) was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced in part by Italian Neorealism. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youthful iconoclasm. Many also reflected in their work the social and political upheavals of the era through their radical experiments with editing, visual style, and narrative which emulated the general break that was taking place in French culture with the conservative paradigm.

Origins of the movement

The peak of French New Wave cinema was between 1958 and 1964, although popular New Wave work existed as late as 1973. The movement's origin goes back to World War II, when France was an occupied country and beset with internal tensions created by a population that in part resisted and in part collaborated with the Nazis. The dichotomy took a toll on the nation's psyche, and when the war ended in 1945, many embittered and confused individuals were eager for the rise of an enlightened culture.

A distinctive philosophy—existentialism—was the answer for many, as it stressed the unique position of the individual as a self-determining agent responsibility for his or her own validity in life. The crux of the existentialist's spirit was to fight indifference through authentic action, taking full responsibility for all of one's decisions as opposed to playing pre-ordained roles dictated by society. In short, the philosophy was what the intellectual and creatively perceptive crowds of post-war France saw as their gateway to personal freedom after a suffocating four years at war.

Existentialists made up only a small fraction of the politically and financially drained French population of the time, the majority of which fell back to the comfortably familiar traditions of life as it was before the war. One such tradition was the continued practice of straight narrative cinema, or classical French film. Desperate to go forward rather than to remain stagnant, much less go backwards, in time, it was the distress of the existentialist, artistic, and intellectual citizens of France that served as the catalyst for the inevitable New Wave rebellion.

Andre Bazin goes here

The socio-economic forces at play shortly after World War II strongly influenced the movement. A politically and financially drained France tended to fall back to the old popular traditions before the war. One such tradition was straight narrative cinema, specifically classical French film. The movement has its roots in rebellion against the reliance on past forms (often adapted from traditional novellic structures), criticizing in particular the way these forms could force the audience to submit to a dictatorial plot-line. New Wave critics and directors studied the work of these and other classics. They did not reject them, but rather found a new outlet for the same creative energies. The low-budget approach helped film-makers get at the essential art form and find what, to them, was a much more comfortable and honest form of production. Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, John Ford, and many B-film directors were held up in admiration while standard Hollywood films bound by traditional narrative flow were strongly criticized.

When asked where New Wave began, most will point to a famous film journal named Cahiers du cinéma. Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, and others tied closely to the ideas of the movement began as critics for this journal, and used publishing as a lead in to what would soon become a wider attack on the classic ‘literary’ style of French Cinema.

They changed notions of how a film could be made and were driven by a desire to forge a new cinema. The Cahiers du Cinéma critics were highly critical of the glossy, formulaic and studio-bound French cinema of the 1940s and 1950s, but praised the work of 1930s French film-makers Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo and the work of the Italian neo-realists, including Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. They also championed certain Hollywood directors, for example, Alfred Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray and Howard Hawks, who they saw as auteurs (authors) of their films, despite the fact that they worked within studio systems making genre pictures. These directors were labelled auteurs because of distinctive themes that could be detected running throughout the body of their work. Through their writings the Cahiers du Cinéma critics paved the way for cinema to become as worthy of academic study as any other art form.

In the late 1950s the Cahiers du Cinéma critics took the opportunity to become film auteurs themselves, when film subsidies were bought in by the Gaullist government, and they put their theories into practice. The core group of French New Wave directors initially collaborated and assisted each other, which helped in the development of a common and distinct use of form, style and narrative, which was to make their work instantly recognizable.

Some of the most prominent pioneers among the group, including François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette, began as critics for the famous film magazine Cahiers du cinéma. Other French directors, including Agnés Varda and Louis Malle, soon became associated with the French New Wave movement. Co-founder and theorist André Bazin was a prominent source of influence for the movement, even regarded as its spiritual father. By means of criticism and editorialization, they laid the groundwork for a surge of concepts which was later coined as the auteur theory. It holds that the director is the "author" of his movies, with a personal signature visible from film to film. They praised movies by Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo, and made then-radical cases for the artistic distinction and greatness of Hollywood studio directors such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray. The beginning of the New Wave was to some extent an exercise by the Cahiers writers in applying this philosophy to the world by directing movies themselves. Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958) is generally credited as the first New Wave feature. Truffaut, with The 400 Blows (1959) and Godard, with Breathless (1960) had unexpected international successes, both critical and financial, that turned the world's attention to the activities of the New Wave and enabled the movement to flourish. Other directors active in the movement although not necessarily part of the core Cahiers contributors included Louis Malle, Alain Resnais, Agnès Varda, Robert Bresson, and Jacques Demy.

The five Cahiers directors (Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rivette and Rohmer) made 32 films between 1959 and 1966. Although the films represented a radical departure from traditional cinema, and where aimed at a young intellectual audience, many of them achieved a measure of critical and financial success, gaining a broad audience both in France and abroad. Truffaut's Les Quatre Cent Coups, for example, won the Grand Prize at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, while A Bout de Souffle was a big European box office hit. This contributed to the growing influence of these directors. After 1964 the experimentation elements of the French New Wave were already starting to become assimilated into mainstream cinema. The directors meanwhile diverged in style and developed their own distinct cinematic voices. Truffaut incorporated more traditional elements in his films, for example, while Godard became increasingly political and radical in his film-making during the 1960s.

Film techniques

French New Wave cinema was a personal cinema. The film-makers were writers who were skilful at examining relationships and telling humane stories. Truffaut's films were particularly autobiographical.

The characters in French New Wave films are often marginalized, young anti-heroes and loners, with no family ties, who behave spontaneously, often act immorally and are frequently seen as anti-authoritarian. There is a general cynicism concerning politics, often expressed as a disillusionment with foreign policy in Algeria or Indo-China. In Godard's A Bout de Souffle (1959) the protagonist kills and shows no remorse, while in Varda's Cléo de 5 á 7 (1961) the protagonist stops playing the roles others expect of her, when she discovers she has cancer, and starts to live authentically.

The French New Wave directors took advantage of the new technology that was available to them in the late 1950s, which enabled them to work on location rather than in the studio. They used lightweight hand-held cameras, developed by the Eclair company for use in documentaries, faster film stocks, which required less light, and light-weight sound and lighting equipment. Their films could be shot quickly and cheaply with this portable and flexible equipment, which encouraged experimentation and improvisation, and generally gave the directors more artistic freedom over their work.

The films had a casual and natural look due to location filming. Available light was preferred to studio-style lighting and available sound was preferred to extensive studio dubbing. The mise-en-scène of Parisian streets and coffee bars became a defining feature of the films. The camera was often very mobile, with a great deal of fluid panning and tracking. Often only one camera was used, in highly inventive ways; following characters down streets, into cafes and bars, or looking over their shoulders to watch life go by. Eric Rohmer's La Boulangère Du Monceau (1962) opens by establishing the action in a specific location in Paris, and is almost entirely filmed in the streets, cafes and shops of this area. In A Bout de Souffle (1959), the cinematographer Raoul Coutard, who worked on many of the French New Wave films, was pushed around in a wheelchair - following the characters down the street and into buildings. Innovative use of the new hand-held cameras is evident, for example, in Truffaut's Les Quatre Cent Coups (1959), where a boy is filmed on a fairground carousel.

French New Wave films had a free editing style and did not conform to the editing rules of Hollywood films. The editing often drew attention to itself by being discontinuous, reminding the audience that they were watching a film, for example by using jump cuts or the insertion of material extraneous to the story (non-diegetic material). Godard, in particular, favoured the use of the jump cut, where two shots of the same subject are cut together with a noticeable jump on the screen. In a Hollywood film this would be avoided by either using a shot/reverse shot edit or cutting to a shot from a camera in a position over 30 º from the preceding shot.

anarchic, humour found in many Nouvelle Vague films.

Long takes were common, use of real time was common

The actors were encouraged to improvise their lines, or talk over each others lines as would happens in real-life. In A Bout de Souffle this leads to lengthy scenes of inconsequential dialogue, in opposition to the staged speeches of much traditional film acting. Monologues were also used, for example in Godard's Charlotte and her Bloke (1959); as were voice-overs expressing a character's inner feelings, as in Rohmer's La Boulangère Du Monceau.

shot in the present tense, a common feature of French New Wave films generally. The films tended to have loosely constructed scenarios, with many unpredictable elements and sudden shifts in tone, often giving the audience the impression that anything might happen next. They were also distinctive for having open endings, with situations being left unresolved.

The way the films were made reflected an interest in questioning cinema itself, by drawing attention to the conventions used in film-making. In this manner, the French New Wave directors strove to present an alternative to Hollywood, by consciously breaking its conventions, while at the same time paying homage to what they regarded as good in Hollywood cinema. Godard's A Bout de Souffle set the tone for La Nouvelle Vague, by telling a simple story about a relationship in a convention-challenging style with numerous references to previous cinema. In addition to telling a love story, the film can also be seen as an essay about film-making.

Women were often given strong parts, that did not conform to the archetypal roles seen in most Hollywood cinema, for example, Jeanne Moreau in Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1962) and Corinne Marchand in Varda's Cléo de 5 á 7.

The movies featured unprecedented methods of expression, such as seven-minute tracking shots (like the famous traffic jam sequence in Godard's 1967 film Week End). Also, these movies featured existential themes, such as stressing the individual and the acceptance of the absurdity of human existence.

Lightweight cameras, lights and sound equipment allowed the New Wave directors to shoot in the streets, rather than in studios. This fluid camera motion became a trademark of the movement, with shots often following characters down Paris streets. Many of the French New Wave films were produced on small budgets, often shot in a friend's apartment, using the director's friends as the cast and crew. Directors were also forced to improvise with equipment (for example, using a shopping cart for tracking shots). The cost of film was also a major concern; thus, efforts to save film turned into stylistic innovations: for example, in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (À bout de souffle), several scenes feature jump cuts, as they were filmed in one long take: parts that didn't work were simply cut right from the middle of the take, a purposeful stylistic decision.

The cinematic stylings of French New Wave brought a fresh look to cinema with improvised dialogue, rapid changes of scene, and shots that go beyond the common 180º axis. The camera was used not to mesmerize the audience with elaborate narrative and illusory images, but to play with and break past the common expectations of cinema. The techniques used to shock the audience out of submission and awe were so bold and direct that Jean-Luc Godard has been accused of having contempt for his audience. His stylistic approach can be seen as a desperate struggle against the mainstream cinema of the time, or a degrading attack on the viewer’s naivete. Either way, the challenging awareness represented by this movement remains in cinema today. Effects that now seem either trite or commonplace, such as a character stepping out of her role in order to address the audience directly, were radically innovative at the time. Classic French cinema adhered to the principles of strong narrative, creating what Godard described as an oppressive and deterministic aesthetic of plot. In contrast, New Wave filmmakers made no attempts to suspend the viewer’s disbelief; in fact, they took steps to constantly remind the viewer that a film is just a sequence of moving images, no matter how clever the use of light and shadow. The result is a set of oddly disjointed scenes without attempt at unity; or an actor whose character changes from one scene to the next; or sets in which onlookers accidentally make their way onto camera along with extras, who in fact were hired to do just the same. At the heart of New Wave technique is the issue of money and production value. In the context of social and economic troubles of a post-WWII France, filmmakers sought low-budget alternatives to the usual production methods. Half necessity and half vision, New Wave directors used all that they had available to channel their artistic visions directly to the theatre.

Lasting effects

As with most art-film movements, the innovations of the New Wavers trickled down to the American cinema. Beginning with the heavily evident stylistic similarities in Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the following generation of American young, studio-hired filmmakers known as New Hollywood (e.g. Altman, Coppola, De Palma, Polanski and Scorsese) of the late 1960s and early 1970s all claim and display influence from the French tradition of the previous decade.

Bob Rafelson, a member of the New Hollywood movement (Five Easy Pieces), claimed that the Marx Brothers and the French New Wave influenced his vision for the television series, The Monkees, which he created and oversaw. Rafelson, with Jack Nicholson, went on to direct the Monkees' feature film, the surrealistic Head which displays a strong New Wave influence.

Likewise, the influence of the movement was seen in a number of other national cinemas globally - beginning in the 1960s, and continuing to the present day. Similar movements arose in a number of European countries, and a large nuberu bagu arose in Japan during the early 1960s, which was somewhat different in its origins, but similar in techniques and trajectory.

Many contemporary filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson, claim influence from the New Wave. Quentin Tarantino dedicated Reservoir Dogs to Jean-Luc Godard and named his production company A Band Apart, a play on words of the Godard film Bande à part. Wes Anderson's sardonic comedies are known to carry influence from the French New Wave; for example, the opening scenes of The Royal Tenenbaums closely mimic the style and cinematography used in the opening scene of Agnes Varda's Cleo from 5 to 7. Additionally, the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was filmed using techniques borrowed from Godard.

Major figures

• Jean-Pierre Melville
• François Truffaut
• Jean-Luc Godard
• Claude Chabrol
• Éric Rohmer
• Jacques Rivette
• Alain Resnais
• Louis Malle
• Agnes Varda
• Jacques Demy

Minor figures

• Jean Eustache
• Bernadette Lafont
• Chris Marker
• Luc Moullet

Frequent Collaborators

• Jeanne Moreau
• Jean-Pierre Leaud
• Jean Paul Belmondo
• Anna Karina
• Brigitte Bardot
• Jean Seberg

Theoretical Influences

• Andre Bazin
• Alexandre Astruc
• Huaco

See also

• British New Wave
• Taiwan New Wave
• Nuberu bagu (Japanese New Wave)
• Hong Kong New Wave
• No Wave Cinema
• Remodernist Film
• Czechoslovak New Wave

External links

• GreenCine primer on French New Wave

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